The subject of high-energy astrophysics is typically linked with satellite missions, though it was launched by a balloon looking for sources of radioactivity other than those found on Earth. The balloon experiments discovered what came to be called "cosmic" radiation. The study of cosmic rays has since been a fruitful field of high-energy astrophysics, yielding the discovery of the positron and currently focused on what their highest energies might be. Other high-energy particles include neutrinos from the Sun and other sources and a variety of particles more theoretical in nature, ranging from WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) to magnetic monopoles. All of these types of high-energy particles and sources will be discussed, including the modern missions used to detect them, their findings, discoveries that resulted from them, and details on the technical aspects of the experiments designs.

Dr. F. Curtis Michel was one of the original faculty members of the Physics and Astronomy (then Space Science) Department at Rice University. He then spent 4 years on leave to NASA as a scientist astronaut (1965-69), and served 5 years as a department chairman (1974-1979). He originally started in elementary particle physics but now has worked on the astrophysical objects known as radio pulsars from their discovery to the present. He has written a book on this subject (Theory of Neutron Star Magnetospheres, University of Chicago Press, 1990). As a Guggenheim fellow he spent a year in France and as a Humboldt fellow, a year in Germany. More recently he spent a year in Japan at the SolarTerrestrial Environment Laboratory of the University of Nagoya as a visiting professor. Michel directed and taught a challenging Natural Science Foundation course aimed at nonscience undergraduates. Currently Michel holds the position of Andrew Hays Buchanan Professor of Astrophysics at Rice University and is also a joint member of the Physics department. He has written over 100 works of scientific literature for a range of publications and conferences.